Science Licence Portal

A regulator’s legacy technology needed replacing with a GOV.UK-compliant system whilst maintaining business continuity.

Responsive Web

The Project

Create, manage and grant licences

The Home Office reached out to Marvel Consultancy where I was the Senior designer to help replace a legacy digital system. The system is used by scientists to make and manage licence applications, it’s also used by the regulator to grant or refuse those licences.

Using the GDS Home Office Design System I completed all the key identified journeys with my tenure at Marvel Consultancy.

The challenge

The existing system, built in 2012, had a number of problems.

Licence applications were emailed in paper format and staff had to input them by hand.

The system wasn’t optimised for mobile working, a serious drawback for staff doing on site inspections.

The system wasn’t technically robust and work sometimes failed to save.

Licences were issued as encrypted PDFs that some people couldn’t open.

The design wasn’t intuitive – users had a steep learning curve to understand how to perform simple tasks.

The solution

We started by identifying the highest priority user needs, we then carried out rapid development cycles as we researched, designed and tested different features of the new service. In total Marvel Consultancy held 222 research sessions over 2 years of which I assisted many of those and iterated designs 2 to 3 times on average.

Digitised and improved the application process, removing the need for manual data entry.

Digitised and improved licences, making them easily visible to authorised users.

Was more technically robust and designed to support mobile working.

Licences were issued as encrypted PDFs that some people couldn’t open.

Was clear and intuitive for first time users.

GDS Home Office Design System

Using the Design System I completed all the key identified journeys with my tenure at Marvel Consultancy.

Inspector reviewing Protocols on a licence

Protocols are part of the science that are heavily regulated thus requiring robust review and approval. It required the optimal design of adding protocols with the ability to add commenting features from the inspector and also responses from the applicant.